Advice On Being A Game Reviewer, how to set yourself apart from others and make quality content.
Since iv'e been getting more recognized and exposed on steemit iv'e had people ask me what exactly goes into game reviewing and how you set yourself apart from the sea of others doing it, it comes naturally to me as iv'e been writing about nearly everything for nearly 20 years, but I thought today i'd take some time out from my usual reviews and give some people some tips on reviewing and how to continually get better at it.
So lets jump straight into it.
What makes a reviewer.
A Natural reviewer is someone who instantly critiques something as they're watching/doing it, the biggest part of reviewing something is creativity, you want to get people your own personal perspective of what you experienced during your time playing it, it's easy to just write down what happened, but that's not what people come for, if you want people to be invested in your content you have to accurately describe and elaborate on how you felt during the game and put it into words.
If people wanted to know the basic outline of the game they can go to any number of wiki's and just read it there and if they want a basic instructional review on the game they can head over to websites like Kotaku or IGN, being a game reviewer is different to reviewing other things as each individuals will experience a game in a different way and have a different perception of the game, a reviewers job is to give your experience in the most detailed way as possible, and there are a few ways to do this, especially when it comes to gaming.
Be Original.
Like I said above, it's easy to just copy the games script and call it a day, but that isn't quality content nor is it going to be worth others time, people naturally respond to originality whether it be good or bad, this is especially true on Steemit as people are here for original content as opposed to the regularly churned out "journalism", so what exactly constitutes originality in reviewing?
Mainly, your personality, people respond to charisma, if you're meek and mild mannered that is going to come through in your writing, personally i'm a gruff, chain smoking, coffee addicted lunatic in real life who has an opinion about everything and loves to argue, and that(hopefully) comes through in my reviews, whether you agree with my opinion or not is up to you i'm just here to give you my perspective on the game, i'm not here to convince people that my opinion is better than yours(when it comes to gaming that is).
The other big part of originality is to write for yourself, I know people who write reviews who write for an audience, the only problem with this is, is that people are individuals, it's impossible to write for 10's to 1000's of individual people and not offset a majority of them with your writing, whether it be boring, uninteresting or unoriginal to them it's a great way to not get recognized.
There is a another big part of originality that leads me into the next part.
Accept and regularly ask for criticism.
At the end of every review i openly ask for criticism on my reviews and you should too, the only way to get better at reviewing is two fold, practice and by asking what people think of your skills, i've made a few changes to my writing over the last couple of months and still accept criticism of my work, if you want to get better this is what you're going to have to do on a regular basis.
Criticism of your work allows you to work on common or uncommon mistakes you make while writing, it also allows you to change a format that might not be working, a lot of people perceive criticism as a negative thing, but it's actually one of the best things that can happen to you as a writer as that way you know people care enough about your writing to actually give you feedback so that you hopefully improve.
Slight addendum though, constructive criticism is great, just plain criticism for no reason is something you can probably ignore.
Passion
Passion is a big driving force of how you write, you writing is an expression of that when you review a game and people respond to it, I try to write and review things that i feel strongly about, for or against, writing about things I don't care about will show and will ultimately become boring not just to you but to the people reading it, if you aren't passionate about something don't try and force it out as the quality of your content will slip.
Also, don't be afraid to really voice your opinion, if we all had the same view the world would be boring, i'm extremely passionate about somethings in the gaming world such as marketing practices, design and story line, and i'll try to mainly focus on those things, you should also play to your strengths when writing as it goes into the original aspect again, don't try and force yourself to write about something you have no interest in.
Don't force it and hold yourself to a standard.
This is a big part for independent reviewers, sometimes when i'm not feeling it or not enthused about writing, I take the day off, it's a common rookie mistake for people who spend a lot of time writing that they come to an impasse when they need to take a break but want to continue writing to keep up appearances, i fell for that a lot when i was first starting out.
No one is going to blame you for taking a day off, especially not here, if you're tired, it'll show in your work or if you don't care about the review it'll also suffer, it's better to take a day off and replenish than it is to continue hitting your head against a wall for a review that ultimately will suffer from it in the long run.
The other big thing is setting a standard and holding yourself to it, I have my own personal standards where i won't post a review if I don't feel it stands up to my own scrutiny, this might be for a number of reasons such as bad writing or I haven't slept enough or i just didn't get the quality I was looking for, but revising or sometimes even scrapping a review is a good thing, I currently have a folder full of reviews I haven't published as I feel they don't stand up to the standard I set for myself.
On the other hand, people will come to expect a certain level of quality from you, especially as you get bigger and they'll know when you phone it in and publishing a bad review or article hurts more than not posting anything at all.
Moral of the story: Take a day off once in a while and hold yourself accountable.
Don't be afraid to strongly voice your opinion.
Basically a review of something is one giant opinion piece, and if you don't have a strong opinion your review will suffer, I personally am very critical of things even in games that I thoroughly enjoy, no one wants to read a stale review that looks like it could of been written by a robot fed the plot of the game, that's the entire point of being a reviewer is to get your experience and opinion out in written form.
I know a lot of people who are afraid of criticizing things that people love, or are afraid of offering a positive view of something people hate, but essentially that point is moot because fuck them, that's why, if you can't accurately portray your opinion and back it up with your own reasoning people are going to see through that very quickly, but having a strong opinion with reasoning to back it up gives people a different view point to think about.
For example, iv'e been very critical of the Dark Souls series for being artificially hard without any actual substantive difficulty outside of one shots and movement, of course I got met with the usual things someone who doesn't enjoy Dark Souls does "get gud" etc etc, but Iv'e also had friends who have played 400-1000 hours+ on the game change their view point on the game as well.
So if your opinion on a game is different to what most people believe, don't think it's wrong or bad, just accurately explain why you think that, it creates a conversation which is exactly what you should be aiming for when you write a strongly opinionated piece or review.
Practice.
There's only one way to get good at Game reviewing and that's to practice, no one just magically acquires the skills to be a great writer it takes years or practice and understanding to make great content and you won't be any different, I still only consider myself a novice and iv'e been writing for years pre steemit, personally on my facebook or blogs, while it's important to look at established reviewers to learn some fundamentals, being a great reviewer can only be acquired with practice and time.
Everyone makes mistakes and has released bad articles before, but as long as you understand you're a rookie and understand and acknowledge your mistakes you'll eventually get better at writing in general, not every review you do has to be a master piece, I do small reviews sometimes just to brush up on certain things and sometimes i do very large reviews to test myself and my writing ability and so should you.
Just make sure to keep it in mind that you're going to make mistakes and that you're still learning and eventually you'll find that reviewing things comes naturally to you and the only thing you can do to get better is practice, practice and then practice some more.
However there is one very, very important aspect of game reviewing that makes all of the above points obsolete if you're not doing it.
Actually play games.
This is the most important one, at the moment we see a lot of video game "journalists" who literally only play the games that they are reviewing, and they usually only play them for a few hours, if you want to break into that industry in a meaningful way you have to know what you're talking about and the only way to know what gaming is about is to be a gamer and to play new games.
I basically do two things in life at the moment, I either play games or i review them, now it might be different for me as i'm trying to make a career out of this and want to be the best I can be, but i'm so absorbed by gaming and the culture that very little gets passed me on a daily basis, you won't understand this or know about it unless you're a gamer in the community and you're playing games on a regular basis.
It also allows you greater insight into other gamers as you'll inevitably be a part of a community of gamers who express their opinions and feeling's on numerous different games, it's just something you can't get or understand unless you're a part of it, so being a game reviewer without being a gamer is like being a chef while only knowing how to make cup ramen.
Now obviously not so many people are going to be as dedicated as me, i get to play games around 10 hours a day so I'm heavily invested in it, but even if you're just a casual player that's a reviewer it's better to finish the game first and reflect on it in your own time to come to a better understanding of the game, that's another common mistake made with some reviewers that they'll play a game as fast as possible so they can get a review out as soon as possible and their work suffers from it.
Conclusion.
There are a myriad of different things that go into making up a game review and there's a lot of us out there, but personally i feel the above mentioned points are the most important, you should always strive to be number one in what you do and this industry is no different, the reason i'm writing this is because I see a lot of being in the gaming tag who are doing a good job but need a little extra push on some of their reviews, or that they're missing some things that will set them apart from others.
Personally I hope steemit becomes a big place to talk about and review games and really anything related to gaming, even though i might just be a small fish on the site i'm aiming to eventually be the best on the site and want to actively encourage others to get better at as well as the quality of reviews will ultimately get better.
But whatever your chosen style of review is, just remember, be original, be passionate and strive for excellence, you should be your own biggest fan and harshest critic, and i hope that this article can help out others to achieve the results they want.
Playing games makes you a better reviewer. Yes, yes, yes, a million times, YES!
There is no more important piece of advice than this, and you nailed it. There's a reason why the most common answer to, "How do I become a better writer?" is, "Read more." The more interaction you have with the medium you wish to critique, the better-informed your writing can be.
Any random writer can say of a game that "The graphics aren't up to par," but if that writer cannot follow up with an example or two of what was "par" at the time the game was made, they've only done half their job.
Were the controls shit? How do you know? What would have made them better? If you decry the original Resident Evil on the PS1 for having shit controls because you don't like the 'tank-style', are you well-versed in the genre enough to know why Capcom went with that scheme (to compliment their engine), or are you disappointed because it didn't control like Dead Space, a game which had the luxury of building on ten years of survival horror control setups which came before?
One cannot review games (or anything else, really) in a vacuum. Know your history, know what came before, understand what came after (assuming you're not reviewing bleeding-edge software), and play the crap out of multiple titles in that genre. And especially play games you don't like, or don't think you'll like. I hate sports games, but if I blew off everything with a sports-related theme, I'd have missed out on some great titles like California Games, Ice Hockey, and Mutant League Football. If you're a guy, play games targeted towards girls. If you're an adult, play games targeted towards kids. Step outside your comfort zone, expose yourself to new ideas, and you'll be better-equipped to review the things you do like, because you'll come back to them with a new appreciation.
Or, who knows, you may just find something hellaciously fun that nobody else knows about. Then you can review THAT, and really step outside the box.
Damn good post, @cryptokrieg! Keep up the good work. :)
Man you should of turned this into your own post hahaha, i fully agree with what you're saying about being able to draw parallels between the past and the present, that's why when i review graphics specifically i try draw connections between the different aspects of the graphics, such as fluidity, flow, transitions and aesthetic appeal.
The Witcher 3 was a perfect example of that where pushing it past the ultra settings(with mods) could give you a too realistic experience that detracted from the game, however a lot of reviews i see of Witcher 3 never went past "It's the best looking game ever" even though it's kinda true it doesn't really add anything more to say, putting a bunch of screenshots up and calling it a day.
Thank's a lot for the comment though my dude, i'm happy to see that other people have the same perspective that I do when to gaming and reviewing, the mainstream gaming "journalism" has always pissed me off because people eat it up but I think slowly, people are starting to getting a taste for better material.
Interesting read. How do you feel about developers - particularly indy devs, admittedly - approaching you asking for a review? I feel like there's always an expectation of a lighter touch on the review, that maybe you'll go easy because they're "indy" and young.
I generally don't like being asked to do this sort of work. I feel like I need a disclaimer in the opening conversation along the lines of "if I don't like it, I'm going to say that, but thanks for the free game!".
Well look, I have no problem with someone approaching me for a review as long as they don't expect something out of it just because they asked me to, that's a problem rampant in mainstream gaming journalism and what kicked off GamerGate.
If an Indie title wants to ask me to review a game they should understand that i'm going to be brutally honest regardless of if money changes hands or not, i actually forgot to put that part in my article is that Integrity plays a massive part in being a reviewer and i'm very in tune with my own strong ethical code.
So i'd say if a indie dev approaches a reviewer, they should expect brutal honesty if the person they're asking is genuine in their approach to be a real reviewer.
Cheers for the comment odin!
Good and usefull post. I upvote for you. Its good for game reviewer.
Thanks Rizky
Same cryptokrieg